Phantoms

the front page—”
    “I am aware of two instances. There may be others,” Flyte insisted. “One of them involved the disappearance of masses of lower lifeforms—specifically, fish . It was remarked on in the press, but not with any great interest. Politics, murder, sex, and two-headed goats are the only things newspapers care to report about. You have to read scientific journals to know what’s really happening. That’s how I know that, eight years ago, marine biologists noted a dramatic decrease in fish population in one region of the Pacific. Indeed, the numbers of some species had been cut in half. Within certain scientific circles, there was panic at first, some fear that ocean temperatures might be undergoing a sudden change that would depopulate the seas of all but the hardiest species. But that proved not to be the case. Gradually, sea life in that area—which covered hundreds of square miles—replenished itself. In the end no one could explain what had happened to the millions upon millions of creatures that had vanished.”
    “Pollution,” Sandler suggested, between alternating sips of orange juice and champagne.
    Dabbing marmalade on a piece of croissant, Flyte said, “No, no, no. No, sir. It would have required the most massive case of water pollution in history to cause such a devastating depopulation over that wide an area. An accident on that scale could not go unnoticed. But there were no accidents, no oil spills—nothing. Indeed, a mere oil spill could not have accounted for it; the affected region and the volume of water was too vast for that. And dead fish did not wash up on the beaches. They merely vanished without a trace.”
    Burt Sandler was excited. He could smell money. He had hunches about some books, and none of his hunches had ever been wrong. (Well, except for that diet book by the movie star who, a week before publication day, died of malnutrition after subsisting for six months on little more than grapefruit, papaya, raisin toast, and carrots.) There was a surefire best-seller in this: two or three hundred thousand copies in hardcover, perhaps even more; two million in paperback. If he could persuade Flyte to popularize and update the dry academic material in The Ancient Enemy , the professor would be able to afford his own champagne for many years to come.
    “You said you were aware of two mass disappearances since the publication of your book,” Sandler said, encouraging him to continue.
    “The other was in Africa in 1980. Between three and four thousand primitive tribesmen—men, women, and children—vanished from a relatively remote area of central Africa. Their villages were found empty; they had abandoned all their possessions, including large stores of food. They seemed to have just run off into the bush. The only signs of violence were a few broken pieces of pottery. Of course, mass disappearances in that part of the world are dismayingly more frequent than they once were, primarily due to political violence. Cuban mercenaries, operating with Soviet weaponry, have been assisting in the liquidation of whole tribes that are unwilling to put their ethnic identities second to the revolutionary purpose. But when entire villages are slaughtered for political purposes, they are always looted, then burned, and the bodies are always interred in mass graves. There was no looting in this instance, no burning, no bodies to be found. Some weeks later, game wardens in that district reported an inexplicable decrease in the wildlife population. No one connected it to the missing villagers; it was reported as a separate phenomenon.”
    “But you know differently.”
    “Well, I suspect differently,” Flyte said, putting strawberry jam on a last bit of croissant.
    “Most of these disappearances seem to occur in remote areas,” Sandler said. “Which makes verification difficult.”
    “Yes. That was thrown in my face as well. Actually, most incidents probably occur at sea, for the sea covers the largest part of the earth. The sea can be as remote as the moon, and much of what takes place beneath the waves is beyond our notice. Yet don’t forget the two stories I mentioned—the Chinese and Spanish. Those disappearances took place within the context of modern civilization. And if tens of thousands of Mayans fell victim to the ancient enemy whose existence I’ve theorized, then that was a case in which entire cities, hearts of civilization, were attacked with frightening